Editors' Review

Driver updates? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," describes how many users feel about updating their system's drivers, but these important bits of software tell your PC's components what to do, and it's wise, sometimes critical, to update them regularly. SlimDrivers Free is a simple tool that uses cloud-based scans to identify, download, and help you install driver updates for your system. It creates a personal profile that remembers your drivers and downloads the right ones automatically when you scan your system.

SlimDrivers Free's simple, colorful interface advised us to begin by scanning our system, so we did. The process involves two steps, scanning for updates and reviewing the findings. SlimDrivers found two updates, which doesn't sound like much, but we keep our test system up-to-date. We selected the first update for downloading and chose to ignore the other for the time being. SlimDrivers not only downloaded the update but also unzipped and started it. Better still, it created a restore point and backup so that we could easily roll back any changes it made.

The update wizard is the same one we'd have downloaded had we visited the vendor's site. We needed to click OK now and then to complete the update process, but in no time we'd downloaded and installed both updates. Scanning again showed that our system was up-to-date with no more updates available. Running Windows Update found nothing SlimDrivers had missed. From the program's toolbar we could uninstall drivers, restore changes, back up our drivers, submit drivers for checking, and access the options, including scheduling automatic update scans and viewing the log files. Product support includes an online forum.

Updated drivers help keep your system running safely and smoothly. SlimDrivers Free certainly helps simplify what can be a complex, piecemeal process that some people find intimidating. Every driver's update process is different, and you'll need to pay attention during the process to click OK and allow the update to proceed at various points. Some updates may require a reboot, too. But if you simply follow each update's instructions, you'll be fine, with SlimDrivers Free's help.

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Publisher's Description

SlimDrivers automatically updates PC drivers with real-time scanning and cloud technology. The first cloud-based utility for updating and maintaining drivers, SlimDrivers provides instant optimization of the interaction between a computer and its system components and periperhals, such as printers, graphic and sound cards, motherboards, USB ports, game controllers and other devices and hardware. SlimDrivers scans a PC, identifies the correct drivers needed, and retrieves them from the cloud, automatically installing the most current, precise drivers for each individual PC. SlimDrivers features a one-click, start scan button on its product homepage, which begins the process automatically to scan a PC and identify out-of-date or broken drivers. Then, seamlessly, SlimDrivers creates a personalized driver profile of that PC, and accesses the online cloud database for the most up-to-date, customized driver software.

SlimDrivers starts the installation process automatically, immediately improving the performance of peripheral devices and maintaining the integrity of communication between software and hardware. Because SlimDrivers uses a cloud database, consumers have automated access to the most current updates for their PC drivers, alleviating the need to search the Web for updates or determine whether their drivers need repair. In real-time, SlimDrivers detects when a driver becomes out-dated, then serves and installs the most recent versions, customized for that individual PC. SlimDrivers updates driver software for all popular computer device brands and works on 32 and 64 bit Windows platforms.

What's new in this version:

Version 2.2.25937.63861 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

i'm having a hard time to find all of my drivers, then i try it and it does the work for me. one good thing about this software is it gave me a warning that one of my current driver is newer than this program downloaded for me so i just cancelled the installation of that one. no problem at first try, so for me it was excellent software..pardon me for my bad english ^^

I searched the Internet for fixes to a 5-year-old computer churning at constant 100% CPU usage. Every website said "You have a virus". I downloaded several anti-virus packages & tried them one by one; nothing helped. Then I used SlimDriver to update several drivers. Problem solved. But wait, there's more: same thing happened at work a couple months later. SD fixed it again.

It does what it says quickly and without a fuss. And with very little "in your face" advertising!

Cons

None that I have found in the last several months.

Summary

Very good. The only improvement I can think of is to maybe have a brief summary as to what each driver actually does for the benefit of non-IT engineers! And/or if the software had its own rating system where the software ranked how important each flagged update was. But it's an excellent utility - and for free, it's fantastic!!

This is a great free alternative to paying for a program to download updates for you. SlimDrivers will download drivers for you, and immediately notify you if there are any problems. Computer scan is quick and easy! Furthermore, its large icons and easy to understand labels make this task easy for computer users of all levels! Definitely worth the download!

Cons

While there arent very many negatives, there is always that 1 thing that bugs someone. With this program, there are 2. First off, it is pretty slow. When there are big updates, it can take as long as 2 hours to download that singlke driver. Smaller ones are faster. But also, it doesnt show all drivers that need to be updated. As when i ran ASO it found all out of date drivers that also needed updating.

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